New to wii hacking, a couple questions

I want to run my version 3.4 wii with a softmod so I can play games from a USB harddrive and also burn games onto that harddrive. I started with the 3.1 to 4.1 softmod and through the Trucha Bug Restorer steps the screen went blank and I had to restart my wii. The homebrew channel was upside down but continued anyway. The preloader menu first comes up when starting the wii and if I want to go to the main channel I get an error no 'hacks.ini' I really dont know where to go from here and am kinda new at this so any help would be appreciated. thanks

did you upgrade to 4.1? You have to make sure that your hacks.ini file is the right one for your system menu, you can go HERE! for the correct hacks. And yes, just re-install HBC. They don't like piracy so after the trucha bug has been done, it reverses the HBC.

Im totally new to this stuff, how would I upgrade to 4.1? and also what would I do just start over with the softmod, or do I have to uninstall anything or have to make it back to a virgin. I am completely new to this stuff and dont really want to mess up my wii.

EDIT: I also just looked at my SD card, and I have the apps, private, bootmii, and wad folder along with boot.elf, hacks, installer, and four wads. Do my hacks file need to have an extension on it?

So in that link you posted I take the 4.1 and copy that and use that as my hacks.ini file instead of what was included in the 'softmod 3.1-4.1' post? And about what I currently have on there, is it better to uninstall homebrew, and then start the process over? I really appreciate your help.

Well you can either un-install preloader or you can follow the guide for 3.1-4.1 mod guide, it will go over the update process. There are a lot of options that you can explore if you want. It's all up to you.

I personally would do the update to 4.1, but not to 4.2 [so no Nintendo Official Updates]